Show jedell ah S mit t ah e keal pathfinder by ELMO SCOTT WATSON E discovered the central route from the rocky mountains to the pacific he was the first white man to cross the future state of nevada the first to traverse utah from north to south and from east to west he was the first american to enter california by the overland route thus fore shadowing its future change of masters he was wa the first white man to scale the high sierras and the first to explore the pacific slope from san diego to vancouver he opened the first gateway through the mountains the south pass later to be thiea threaded ded by unnumbered thousands of home seekers and gold hunters a and n d from it he was to make four our trails fan shaped one far to the north one far to the northwest 1 on far to the west one far t to the southwest helas he was the herald of the western american empire the makers of which would follow ills his trails and settle in farms and towns and cities from the mountains to the sea and au all this he accomplished during his short life of only thirty three ayearst jedediah Jed edlah strong smith was his name and not unfittingly has he been called the american ulysses ulyssel but nearly a century was to elapse before a horner homer should arise to tell the tale of his wanderings and sing the glory of his achievement in the meantime another and lesser man following the trail which he had blazed would be hailed as the pathfinder john C fremont was the man but by every e ery rule of simple justice that title belongs to jedediah strong smith 0 0 considering the importance of smith in the history of the fur trade and of trans missouri exploration it seems strange that publication of a biography of this giant of the old west should have been so long delayed but it was not until this year that JOE MEEK such a full length portrait of him has been available and the complete story of the real pathfinder told by an authority on the subject ile ha Is maurice S sullivan whose jedediah smith trader and trail bre breaker aker was published recently by the press of the tha pioneers inc of new york this book Is based base dupon upon a copy of smiths diary which sullivan unearthed after a search lesting lasting many years He found it in I 1 the possession ola oba remote branch of smiths family and with etwas it was a map of the pathfinders Path finders travels yankee pioneers smith was born inthe little village of jericho N X Y on an january 6 1799 of a line of tall vigorous stern god fearing yankees who had reared successive generations erat ions in massachusetts new hampshire and connecticut and pushed their way westward and southwestward conquering the land as they went he was tha ahe sixth of 14 children all of whom had their schooling under a connecticut schoolmaster bearing the impressive name of titus gordon Vesp vespasian aslan Sir simons hons T the h e westward urge struck young diah smith early one factor in it was his rea reading ding an account of the explorations of lewis and dark clark at the age aga of twenty one he was hunting and trapping near the rock river rapids in illinois and in the spring of 1822 he strode into st louis bearing a rifle and a pack the contents of that pack are interesting it consisted of a few provisions keepsakes keep sakes and several books including a bible a collection of wesleyan hymns evidences of christianity an english translation of rollins ancient history and th eLewis and dark clark book in the years to come he would be associated with some of the roughest characters in the history of america trappers and fur traders who feared neither god nor man nor had reverence for either but some quality in the psalm sing ing bible carrying young yankee would so impress them that they would gladly acknowledge him as their leader and willingly follow him through untold hardships an and dangers angers the odyssey of Jed jedediah edlah smith began in st louis then as for many years later the fur capital of the world in that spring ol of 1822 there he joined the famous ashley henry expedition which proposed to go up the missouri and tap the rich fur resources of its headwaters and its iti artesand aries arie sand and by doing so he became associated with men whose names would loom large in the future history of the old west gen william H ashley maj andrew henry william L sublette jim beckwourth Beckw hugh glass and thomas fitzpatrick fitz odthe broken hand me lie becomes a hunter smith was engaged as hunter for the expedition and although that relieved him of the aldous task of helping drag the 75 foot keelboat cor delling they called it up the big muddy his duties exposed him constantly to attack from either supposedly friendly or openly hostile indians however he s successfully avoided those dangers during the trip up the river ns as he did similar dan gers that winter when he was hunter for the post which major henry had established at the mouth of the yellowstone young diah won his spurs as an indian fighter during the attack by the ar akaras or rees on ashleys Ashl Ash leys cys upriver up river party the next year he also won the high regard of that leader by being one of the two men who volunteered for the task of traversing the danger filled miles to get help from major mafoi henry on the yellowstone As a result he became a captain of the company of trappers who joined with col hem henry y leavenworth in his punitive expedition against the rees and he also became one of ash leys most trusted captains in the conduct of the trapping and trading business which that energetic leader carried on during the next three years ik tho the rocky mountains puring during this time smith widened his acquaintance among the trap trappers and fur traders who were already famous or would become famous later such men as jim bridger joe meek milton sublette and moses black H harris arris and the remarkable thing is that suc himen as these prized the friendship and acknowledged the right to leadership of this slender beardless young yankee he became their leader in still another sense in an 1826 when ashley who had made a modest fortune out of the fur busi business liess in three years decided to retire so he sold his stock of goods his company and everything he owned in the mountains to smith william sublette and david E jackson the new firm immediately divided up the duties of the business smith became the finder of new fur trails sublette was in charge of field operations and jackson was in charge of the company business As a finder of new fur country smith immediately set oft off upon his amazing wanderings he started west out of the salt lake basin with 15 men they passed the great salt lake and headed southwestward for california this route took them across the blazing mo jobe jabe desert and the hardships which they suffered suJI ered on this journey were terrific but they won I 1 jm JIM BRIDGER through safely and from a mountain top I jedediah smith looked far far away to the horizon the land ended there was water and fin an island in a vast ocean what thoughts passed through the mind of diah smith as he gazed upon this wonder we can only conjecture he may have thought of the greeks of whom he had read who after long wandering carne came joyfully at last to the eu aine sea ile he may have thought of balboa silent upon a peak LV 0 af T 6 Q STRONG SMITH in darien certainly he thought of the vision which had drawn him through suffering and danger the first white man to cross the continent from the bank of the mississippi to the california shore now lay the second gate open the high road charted westward the course of empire saw its way in the young yankee hunter si sitting his horse on the rim of the world lay the end of hope for england or tor for russia t to 0 take california for spain to regain it or for mexico to keep its slender hold ills his begins so jedediah smith came to the end of his first remarkable journey but it was only the beginning of others even more remarkable in many respects when he arrived in san diego the spanish authorities looked with considerable suspicion on this invader who might be co coming m to spy out their fair coun country try forthome for those land hungry westward pushing americans who had so recently extended their domain from the mississippi river to the crest of the after spending some time at san diego where he purchased supplies smith led his men still seeking good beaver streams failing to find them on the san joaquin and the merced rivers he pushed on to the stanislaus then lie he turned his eyes eastward where the sierra nevada range lifted its snow capped peaks toward the sky leaving most of ilia his party on tho the stanislaus smith with two companions seven horses and two pack mules set out to scale the range for eight days they fought the snowdrifts snow drifts and finally emerged on n the eastern side but ahead of them was the nevada desert worse even than the mojave for 20 days they marched across that inferno and by the time they had finally ton conquered it they had eaten all of their horses but one sunbaked sun baked and gaunt with hunger they managed to reach the summer rendezvous of the trappers on bear lake near the present lakewood utah tile the raili pathfinder finder instinct smith had traveled a g great reat circle over country never before trod by white men but his unerring pathfinder instinct had led him straight to his goal undaunted by the experiences he had been through he set out again after only a short rest this time with 19 men and two indian women this time the spanish I 1 fearing no good of smiths explorations had incited the indians against him and at the mojave villages beset his small party ten of his hia m men n were killed the two squaws squads carried oft off to captivity all his belongings were lost with the remnants of his party he reached california to make matters worse the spaniards clapped smith in jail at san jose and later moved him to monterey but he finally succeeded in getting gettin g his freedom by signing a paper that he would leave the country immediately north nonh he headed with his party for miles to the american fork beaver here were plentiful the traps were daily yielding rich catch catches es and a small fortune in furs was being gathered into oregon british territory the party went for these fur trad ers era had fiad little regard for political boundaries T they hey encamped on the umpqua river there one day while smith was away the indians indiana fell on the camp 6 and virtually wiped it out only two men escaped the indians took the entire outfit and that rich haul ot of furs smith came back to find everything gone one odthe men who had escaped joined him there and the two headed farther north for fort vancouver there strangely enough the good dr me loughlin greeted them warmly although the hudsons Hud sons bay company frowned on invasions oi of ua its fur empire mcloughlin sent out parties and made the tha indians indiana disgorge the loot they had obtained in the massacre of the camp then he paid smith for the lot the other refugee from the camp reached the fort and in march of 1829 smith and his two companions set out up the columbia to drop ov over erthe the divide and make his way back to the mountains where his company was operating he joined them this time in pierres hole and there the three partners were united for the first time in two years the following year sublette and jackson well satisfied with their returns from the fur trade decided to retire and enter the santa fe trade the fatal decision loading their wagons with packs of furs smith jackson and sublette headed for st louis passing out of dominance in the 0 DR JOHN fur trade which had given them all independence As it turned out this was a fatal decision so tat as smith was concerned in the spring of 1831 he led a caravan out of independence mo headed for santa fe 0 one ne morning in may his men fo found und themselves entering a barren stretch of country between the arkansas and the cimarron rivers it was known by the tha mexicans as la jornada the journey with the implication that it might become a journey of death and that was just what it was for Jed jedediah edlah smith I 1 after three days of thirst smith rodo rode ahead to find water at last lie he found it a muddy hole in the dry wash of the cimarron As he drank a war party of comanche manche Cd indians surrounded him young diah smith made the peace sign to them but their intention was not pence peace so under the stabbing lances of the manches Co Cd tho the career of this american ulysses this r real e a I 1 pathfinder came to an end orl on may 27 1831 0 western newspaper milos |